[9] Νυκτὸς θάλαμος [Ion] fr. 8, 2.
[10] On the story of Midas and Silenos see Griech. Roman, p. 204 f. As to the ancient and often repeated maxim ἀρχὴν (or πάντων) μὲν μὴ φῦναι ἐπιχθονίοισιν ἄριστον κτλ., see Bgk., Opusc. ii, 214; PLG4. ii, p. 155 f. Nietzsche, Rh. Mus. xxviii, 212 ff. (whose view that the [440] beginning ἀρχὴν . . . is old and original—but not his involved explanation of this—has been fully confirmed by the finding of the primitive form of the ἀγών: Mahaffy, On the Flinders Petrie Papyri, i, p. 70).
[11] Simon, fr. 39; 38.
[12] fr. 137.—Usener, Götternamen, 229, 13, says of Sappho that “she was possessed by the belief that as a poetess she would live again after her death among the gods, and would therefore become a heroine; see frr. 68 and 136”. But from these fragments of Sappho no such belief can be extracted without first reading into them a good deal that they do not say.
[13] Of the man who has fallen in glory on the battlefield Tyrtaios says, 12, 31 f.: οὐδέ ποτε κλέος ἐσθλὸν ἀπόλλυται οὐδ’ ὄνομ’ αὔτοῦ, ἀλλ’ ὑπὸ γῆς περ ἐὼν γίγνεται ἀθάνατος (i.e. in renown upon earth). Thgn. says to his Kyrnos, 243 ff., in your lifetime my songs will make you famous καὶ ὅταν δνοφερῆς ὑπὸ κεύθεσι γαίης βῇς πολυκωκύτους εἰς Ἀίδαο δόμους, οὐδέποτ’ οὐδὲ θανὼν ἀπολεῖς κλέος ἀλλὰ μελήσεις ἄφθιτον ἀνθρώποις αἰὲν ἔχων ὄνομα . . . cf. Aesch., Epigr. iii, 3 (241 Bgk. = 449 Di.), ζωὸν δὲ φθιμένων πέλεται κλέος.
[14] Even in Hades the dead perceive χθονίᾳ φρενί if they themselves or the ἀρεταί of their descendants upon earth are praised: Pi., P. v, 98: cf. O. viii, 81 ff.; xiv, 20 ff.; [Ion] Anth. Pal. vii, 43, 3 (to Eurip.), ἴσθι δ’ ὑπὸ χθονὸς ὤν, ὅτι σοι κλέος ἄφθιτον ἔσται κτλ.—In the expressions collected by Meuss, Jahrb. f. Philol. 1889, p. 812 f., from the fourth century orators there only remains a very faint recollection of such a belief.
[15] Semon. 2, τοῦ μὲν θανόντος οὐκ ἂν ἐνθυμοίμεθα, εἴ τι φρονοῖμεν, πλεῖον ἡμέρης μιῆς.—Stes. 51, ἀτελέστατα γὰρ καὶ ἀμάχανα τοὺς θανόντας κλαίειν. 52, θανόντος ἀνδρὸς πᾶσ’ ἀπόλλυται ποτ’ ἀνθρώπων χάρις.
[16] This emerges at once if we review the material collected by H. Meuss upon “the conceptions appearing in the Attic orators of existence after death”: Jahrb. f. Philol. 1889, pp. 801–15. For the cult of the soul and all that attaches to it the orators are our most authoritative witnesses and as such are frequently examined in the sections of this book that deal with the subject.
[17] εἴ τινες τῶν τετελευτηκότων λάβοιεν τρόπῳ τινὶ τοῦ νῦν γιγνομένου πράγματος αἴσθησιν and frequently in this style: cf. the passages quoted by Westermann on D., Lept. (20), 87; cf. also Lehrs, Pop. Aufs. 329 ff. The question is always whether the dead are capable in any way of apprehending what goes on in this world. The continued life of the dead is never doubtful but rather implied throughout, for without such implication no possibility whatever would be left for that εἰ—.
[18] See Nägelsbach, Nachhom. Theol. 420. Meuss, p. 812.